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Sunday, February 19, 2017

Before I continue, new tools! Jimmy bought me a pair of Merry connector pliers, I picked up a 6" fine cut round file, and I bought a few more cheapo die grinders from Harbor Freight. I also bought two more clamps, because you can never have enough clamps.

When I left off, I had been smoothing my rear brake caliper carriers.

After sanding all of the faces to 80 grit, I marked it up with bluing to file consistent fillets all around the part.

After the edges were filed, I sand blasted the calipers to get a consistent finish before moving to higher grits. This was also my chance to remove any rust I had discovered, especially on the surfaces that won't be powdercoated (contact surfaces).

After blasting, I blued them up again to make sure I don't miss any spots with 150 grit or polishing.

After a bit more sanding, I'm considering them finished. This is finished with 150 grit and then scotch brite.

This surface finish isn't really required, and will actually be sandblasted again before powdercoat, but going to this level of polish is important to make sure the lines and reflections will look right after coating. I could have stopped at 80 grit, but there would be some uncertainty that the parts would show flaws.

Since these are now bare steel, I coated them with Gibbs oil to prevent rust until they're ready for coating.

I think every grinding and filing implement I own was used in this project.

(Note: that's not true I have at least triple this)

Up next: Girling 60 dual piston front calipers. These are also steel, as are the carriers, and they're not quite as nice as the VW / Lucas rears.